6 Places Where You Can Visit the Post-Apocalypse (Today)

If you're anything like us, you've got what your mother might call a "disturbing" obsession with the world that comes after the inevitable meteor, plague, robot uprising, or birdpocalypse. Well, good news! There's no need to sit around twiddling your thumbs while waiting to see what post-apocalyptic Earth might look like -- not when there currently exist places such as ...

#6. The Ruins of the Future That Never Was

Expo '92 in Seville was one of the 20th century's final world's fairs, so Spain wanted to do that biz up right. The theme of the expo was "The Age of Discoveries," and Seville certainly lived up to it: They spent over five years and $2 billion to construct a 500-plus-acre utopian city of the future. You know, sort of like Epcot, only ... well no, it was exactly like Epcot.

CopeauAs residents of The Future, we're a little disappointed there aren't as many giant, pointless balls as promised.

The expo was a smash hit, attracting more than 16 million visitors during its short six-month run. But the extravaganza was over as quickly as it began, and while the organizers had high hopes that it would spark a rebirth of tourism to the region, it just ... didn't. Thus, much of the site has since been abandoned to the elements. The rocket ship on the horizon is forever lashed to the Earth by decidedly low-tech vines; the monorails are up on blocks and wouldn't look a bit out of place in the backyard of some sci-fi redneck.

The high-speed railway station and its barren tracks leading away to nowhere would make a perfect backdrop for exploding a few supermutants to harvest their minigun ammo, or perhaps just a good place to catch the last train to Thunderdome.

#5. Abandoned World War II Fortifications

Even wars of the less-than-apocalyptic variety can leave our beaches littered with discarded wartime leftovers that look like something Charlton Heston would tear his shirt open over. Case in point: the sprawling concrete behemoth that is the World War II bunker at Cape May Point in New Jersey.

The bunker was constructed in 1942 as part of the Harbor Defense Project, and back then it was located underground ... and 900 feet inland. Today, its hilly disguise has long since worn away, and it basks in all its bunkery majesty right there on the beach. At low tide, you can even see the gun turrets aimed out to sea.

Abandoned bunkers are pretty uncommon in the States, but photographer Jonathan Andrew captured a few more modern megaliths crouching upon the shores of France:

While many of the bunkers are clearly showing the effects of time and slowly crumbling into unrecognizable rubble, others still look much as they must have during the war, remaining ever vigilant in their watch over the pounding waves, like something yanked straight out of some futuristic surf-themed dystopia.

#4. The Abandoned Walt Disney World Water Park

With 30 million visitors a year, it's difficult to imagine what a Walt Disney World theme park would look like if all the people just up and vanished. There is literally no point in the day at which a Disney theme park is devoid of fat tourists in mouse hats jamming up your teacup time. But if you want a sneak peek at the world after Disney, just look a little bit to the right: There's an abandoned and unkempt water park right within eyeshot of both Disney's Contemporary Resort and the Space Mountain roller coaster.

Opened in 1976, River Country was Walt Disney World's very first water park. For over 25 years, the park titillated throngs of hot, wet visitors with its massive Whoop-N'-Holler Hollow (that's the name of a water slide. Get your mind out of the gutter). However, over the years, River Country gradually lost its thunder to Disney's newer water parks, and in late 2001 they washed their hands of the whole venture. We'd apologize for the terrible pun, but it would be insincere.

In just one short decade, Mother Nature took back what was rightfully hers, covering walkways once frequented by thousands of dripping tourist feet with thick vegetation ...

Now we here at Cracked know our readers, so we're well aware that approximately every last one of you is at this very moment planning to ninja your way into the ruins of River Country during your next visit to Walt Disney World. We'd strongly advise against that. Disney is notoriously strict with noncompliance. The last guy who tried it is probably shackled up in some dark corner of the Utilidors with seven stocky guys in dwarf costumes taking turns giving him the ol' "Heigh-Ho" right now.